Opera Scotland

Carolyn Watkinson began her training at the Royal Manchester College of Music, after which she studied at the Hague Conservatory. She continued to live there, and quickly developed a notable international career that rarely involved performances in Britain, even though she worked at the major continental houses, and developed a particularly high reputation for baroque music.

She did appear at the Royal Opera House during the 1978 English Bach Festival, when she sang Phèdre in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, conducted by Jean-Claude Malgoire. Apart from her visit to Edinburgh with the Piccola Scala company, her only other operatic appearance in Britain was the title-role in Cenerentola on the Glyndebourne Tour.